UN:The effects of the second Iraq war has caused the number of refugees globally to rise to its highest level in five years.
The UN refugee agency's 2006 Global Trends report shows that the number of refugees under the agency's mandate rose 14 per cent last year to almost 10 million.
There has also been a steep rise in the number of internally displaced people, and people deemed "at risk" by the agency, caused by a range of international conflicts.
According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) report, the increase in the number of refugees is due largely to the situation in Iraq, which by the end of last year had forced up to 1.5 million Iraqis to seek refuge in other countries, particularly Syria and Jordan.
However, Afghans remain the largest single group of refugees, notes the report, with some 2.1 million individuals within the refugee agency's mandate.
Other large groups of refugees include: Sudanese (686,000), Somalis (460,000), and refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Burundi (some 400,000 each).
These figures don't represent the total number of refugees worldwide but only those that benefit from UNHCR assistance. For example 4.3 million Palestinians who fall under the protection of a different UN agency are not included in the figures.
UN high commissioner for refugees António Guterres said the number of people uprooted by persecution was increasing, yet the UN faced real difficulties in helping those at risk.
"We are part of the collective response by the UN system and the broader humanitarian community to the plight of the internally displaced," said Mr Guterres.
"At the same time, faced with a situation like Darfur, the role of organizations such as ours is severely constrained."
The report also highlights a spike in the number of people deemed "at risk" by the agency, which jumped to 32.9 million, up from 21 million at the end of 2005.
The rise was due in part to improved registration systems and more accurate statistics as well as an increase in conflicts.
At the end of 2006, 12.9 million internally displaced persons were receiving humanitarian assistance from programmes involving the UNHCR, double the figure in 2005. This was due to hundreds and thousands of more people becoming displaced due to unrest in Colombia, Iraq, Lebanon, Sri Lanka and Timor-Leste.
The number of stateless people, people who live in a country but are not given citizenship, also doubled in 2006 to 5.8 million, when compared to 2005. This increase was not necessarily due to improved numbers of stateless people but rather better data collection in states, according to the report.
Erika Feller, assistant commissioner for protection at the UN refugee agency, said yesterday some countries were "rather keen to define away the refugee element of problems".